A Chat with a Stranger

He may be standing tall but he certainly showed genuine humility or at least courtesy…

“Is there any problem?” the guy asked with a deeply-accented voice.

“Uh…”

I was in a photocopy shop opposite USM. The heavily bearded guy, who I later learnt, was a Jordanian, came in a little while after me. When he first entered and greeted me with a warm smile, I was quite taken aback by his sheer height. He may be standing tall but he certainly showed genuine humility or at least courtesy, I thought.

I watched with amusement as Mr So-Very-Tall Guy took a seat and placed his black briefcase next to him. (That briefcase made me think of the one carried by Felix the cat.) He then helped himself with some Chinese magazine, which I believed was all Greek to him as is Arabic to me.

In the meantime, the lady working in the photocopy shop was switching from one photocopying machine to another… God knows why. It wasn’t long before Mr So-Very-Tall Guy “went though” the stack of magazines, wondering why she was taking so long.

When he asked me if there was any problem with the photocopy machine, I naturally took it as a rhetorical question. “Nope. The machine’s all right. The problem’s with the lady,” was what I wanted to say.

“Are you from USM?” I diverted his question instead.

“Yeah.” And it turned out Mr So-Very-Tall Guy was from Jordan, “one of the poorest countries in Asia”, as he put it. He came over to Penang to study Computer Science on his own expenses.

“You’re from USM too?” he asked.

“No, no! I’m still in High School.”

“Oh, you look as tall as an adult,” he commented.

Wow, what a joke! A so-very-tall guy calling a not-so-tall guy tall! I took it as a compliment anyway.

Then, we talked about this and that. And when I asked him why did he opt to complete his Master’s Degree here in Malaysia, “I find this place nice” was his reply. That’s the irony. While we Malaysians are dying to get out from the country, those from the poorer countries are ready to eke out their money to study in our local universities. Is it our mentality or our quality of living in relative, that brings to this? Frankly speaking, I think the former one is the stronger reason, for, like the stereotypical Malaysians, I’m sceptical of the local system of education.

As I was thinking of this, the lady was still struggling with the photocopying machine. Sigh, I wondered if she had just purchased this “sophisticated” technology from some alien workshop and had not have the chance to go through the manual.

“Slow. She works really slow,” Mr So-Very-Tall Guy remarked.

I replied with a wide grin. Couldn’t agree more!